Oral history interview with Charles Fauset (part 1), March 22, 1996.

Charles Fauset Part 1
Interviewed by Monte Poen
March 22, 1996
Poen: I’m visiting this morning with Dr. Charles Fauset. Dr. Fauset came to Northern Arizona University- actually it was ASC Arizona State College in 1950. And we had about six hundred seventy-seven student’s there- according to my figures- fifty-two faculty at that time. Dr. Fauset became the first dean of the College of Education, and when he retired, after a tremendous amount of growth, accomplishment, challenges, in1981, this institution had increased to 11,601 students. We had six hundred fifty-one faculty. Imagine, we had gone from fifty-two faculty to six hundred fifty-one faculty. I’m delighted to have you with me this morning Dr. Fauset.
Fauset: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Poen: Why don’t we start off talking about your early years. Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
Fauset: In Indiana. In a small town in the North ntral part of Indiana. A little town completely surrounded by farms. Small farms. Very rich soil in that area.
Poen: What was the town’s name?
Fauset: Delphi. Delphi, Indiana.
Poen: Did you come from a small family or a big family?
Fauset: Well my family was pretty small too. I have one sister. Of course my mother and father.
Poen: And you went to school in Delphi?
Fauset: Went through high school in Delphi. Then went on down to Terre Haute, and got my bachelor’s degree. And some years later a master’s degree from the same institution. And after WWII, I took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights and went back to Indiana University at Bloomington to get my doctorate.
Poen: What did you do during the war?
Fauset: I was in reconnaissance, Air Force reconnaissance in the European theatre.
Poen: Got your doctorate at Indiana. I assume it was in education?
Fauset: Educational psychology with a minor in psychology.
Poen: Did you come here immediately when you graduated from Indiana University?
Fauset: Yes. From Bloomington to Flagstaff.
Poen: Had you ever been to Flagstaff before? Ever driven through here?
Fauset: No I hadn’t - you must remember this was 1950 and College faculty were extremely hard to come by. They were very difficult to find. I can recall having one, two, three, four offers by phone. Isn’t like that now I’m sure. And one of them was from Dr. Eastburn .
Poen: What attracted you to ASFlagstaff if you had other offers.
Fauset: Well, to tell you the truth it was climate. Before going overseas, I had spent a considerable amount of time in Colorado Springs, Colorado and loved it. So when we started looking for a place to live and work, I thought it would be fine to find something similar to Colorado Springs. By the way, they had a private college there with an offer. Their salaries were terrible in Colorado in those days. I hope they’re better now. But I got out the map and found that the altitude is similar, a little higher here. And there were some other considerations, but that frankly was a major one.
Poen: So when you arrived and we had about six hundred students. You mentioned earlier that it dropped because of the Korean War. You arrived in 1950. The war got started in June if I’m not mistaken, and we dropped about one hundred students in one year.
Fauset: Down close to five hundred in ‘51-’52.
Poen: When you got here, we had twelve faculty members in the education area. What was it called at that time, was it called a department?
Fauset: Department of Education. That by the way included the lab school teachers. Half of them were in lab school.
Poen: Tell me a little bit about this lab school. This was actually an elementary school on this campus, and it was used as a laboratory to develop learning techniques. Is that right?
Fauset: Yes, that’s right. We had some excellent teachers in that lab school when I arrived. I had nothing to do with getting them, I had something to do with keeping them, but that was later down the line. We had excellent lab school teachers. Most of them taught a College course. Elementary reading, arithmetic, or some methods course...something like this. I think organizationally they were always considered part of the faculty.
Poen: Do you remember some of those early people? Who were they?
Fauset: Zitfini was the kindergarten, Minnie Roseberry in first grade, Gladys Fair in the 3rd grade, Ivernia Tyson in the 4th. We had, we were trying to keep men as teachers in the 5th and 6th grade to give the kids the opportunity to be in contact with both men and women. Jerry Knoles was there in the 6th grade, I can recall Francis Davern in the 5th. Frank Lloyd was in the 6th, and he kind of stayed on and went ahead and got his doctorate, came back and became principal there. Great service for many, many years.
Poen: Were you hired as the chair of the department?
Fauset: No. I was hired as replacement for the one psychologist that ASC had at that time. She took off for a year’s study. And my major task was to be director of testing to run the test program. For some reason or another I found out that all the College students in 1950 were subjected to five different tests, as part of the admission procedure. They took a scholastic aptitude test, a reading test, an interest inventory, personality, the old Minnesota Multiphase, and a fifth test, I don’t recall just what that was at the present time. That was before computers and any kind of mechanical help. You say there were fifty faculty, I thought there were only forty, forty-three?
Poen: It says fifteen, twelve rather.
Fauset: In the entire College.
Poen: I don’t have those figures.
Fauset: I thought there were about forty-three. The reason I thought that is after giving all of these tests to our students, we had to hand grade them. And I had to try to get these forty-three people. By the way they were marvelous, exceedingly helpful. We would come back and get in the registrar’s office, get at our own desks, and come around with keys...
Poen: Your talking about College wide.
Fauset: I’m talking about College wide.
Poen: According to my figures in 1951-’52 there were sixty-four. And then the next year it dropped down to sixty, I guess that reflects the drop.
Fauset: I guess ten or fifteen escaped the grading of those papers.
Poen: So the whole College would grade those papers whether you were a history prof or a chemistry prof.
Fauset: And some did better that others. People like Downum and Bastion, always were there to help grade those. And 100% of the education faculty.
Poen: How about the quality of students when you got here? Did they strike you as being different in anyway?
Fauset: Yes they did. This was my first experience with college level. Well, I had taught a couple classes in English at an extension at the University of Illinois when I was there briefly. But these students were pretty mature. Many of them were returnees from WWII as I was. We lived down in ttage ty, which is now gone. And most of the students also lived down there. As I recall they were more mature than I expected them to be.
Poen: GI’s. On the GI Bill. Anything about the campus that struck you? The landscaping, the informality? Didn’t they have their own dairy, or was that before you came?
Fauset: That was before my four years. I never got into the cow milking business as a part of the university.
Poen: Well, I understand that some of the students worked their way through school doing this.
Fauset: Oh yeah. And I can recall many stories because the students were still here, so I must not have been long before my arrival that they had stopped.
Poen: You were appointed the first dean of the College of Education in 1966. Were you the chair prior to this?
Fauset: Yes.
Poen: When were you elevated to chair? How long had you been here?
Fauset: It was when the school decided to organize into some divisions so then we were departments and the education structure was set into a division. I think it was 1959. I had been here seven years and then got an offer to go back to my alma mater, Indiana State College. And I couldn’t resist whatever it is that hauls you back like that. In one year, in that year I had worked seven years then with President Walkup who was dean when I left. And he came by and offered me the job as head of the division when it was being formed, I think it was 1959. And we operated as a division until 1966, when we became a university and fortunately I was selected as the dean. Really, I was the first dean, and I was happier and prouder of the fact that I was longest dean in...
Poen: How long were you there?
Fauset: I was there seven, twelve, fourteen years. I haven’t counted them, but I think it was around fourteen.
Poen: Well it was under your leadership that there was tremendous growth leadership, bricks and mortar. Wasn’t Eastburn opened up before or after you became dean?
Fauset: Before. When we became a division. When I came back we weren’t in Eastburn- it was nearly completed. And it was about one semester, it would either be by 1959 or 1960 that we moved into the Eastburn Education nter.
Poen: Where were you before that? What building? Were you in Old Main?
Fauset: Old Main. Let’s see. Summers we weren’t all together. The lab school was that journalism building when I left, I don’t know what it is now. First building when you come onto campus. And then the old administration building...
Poen: The Blome Building.
Fauset: Yeah that was the lab school. The next one the administration building also housed the library, and the registrar’s office, and the business office. And my office was in that building. Tom Bellwood’s office was in there too. We were a kind of mixture. One of the nice things about that kind of small faculty is that we were one. We didn’t separate ourselves by interest pattern or background training. We were just one collegiate faculty. Another thing about that Eastburn Education nter. I can recall for a couple of years, we wondered what we were going to do with all that space. We had really been crowded before that.
Poen: Was the lab school built at the same time? Was it Eastburn and then the wing behind it. And then IHD at the very end- The Institute for Human Development was that added on later?
Fauset: That was part of the original plan. Not much later, two or three years after we moved in, Ron Peterson got a good sizable grant to study an Indian population that needed some rehabilitation services. And as we worked through that, we came out with this rehabilitation center, which I think is a remarkable addition there to the College of Education. Allowed us to really diversify as we hired our educational psychology staff. It really boomed, and blossomed into twenty professors. And gave us the opportunity to specialize. Even though we were still relatively small institution, small in terms of the production of teachers we were able to hire specialists in the field of Psychology, which was my original area of specialty anyway. We hired a clinical psychologist, an industrial psychologist, counseling psych., experimental, physiological, we could weave them all into the basic core of educational psychology. It worked fine. They are now as you know not in the College of Education. But in those days as we were developing it was good for the university and it was good for the psychologists.
Poen: So you added a lot of faculty in the 1960’s. You had ninety faculty in education by 1975. That’s a jump from twelve faculty to ninety faculty. I notice you put a lot of emphasis upon student teacher counseling. And from Dr. Walkup’s book, this was explained as being quite new. Maybe not new, but that this institution stood out in contrast to other institutions in that there was so much emphasis put upon counseling, and helping them maybe beyond the academic curriculum. uld you make a comment about that? Whose idea was that? Or was that a pattern that developed over a period of time?
Fauset: I think it was the idea of the total College. We used to have quite a few meetings. I felt that my role was to encourage. I wasn’t the kind of boss who passed around orders. I felt I thought I could communicate individually or with the whole group in terms of encouraging them to keep thinking - what do the teachers of today need to know. What behavior patterns do they need that we might be giving them? And what kind of background experiences should we select these people from? As we kept talking, it grew into a kind of formalized admission program. I think in terms of timing it was one of the first. We developed a thorough admission program, and along with that, we devised a scheme of having our faculty advise each education major. And we even had the education major report to the admission center and the faculty advisor. In those days the faculty advisor may have ten maybe fifteen. We felt in addition to courses, you ought to get aquatinted with the students and be a counselor. Things were rapidly changing in the total education scene in those days, and we wanted those people to have the opportunity to see how they were doing, and how they could improve their chances of being an effective teacher.
Poen: You mentioned the Korean War and the impact it had. Sputnik had quite an impact didn’t it in 1957. I know from talking with others that it gave the institution quite a kick because there was an emphasis now upon spending more money, not only on the state, but on the national level. The federal government got into the act with the National Defense Education Program which I am a beneficiary of. Providing fellowships for graduate students and so on. Do you have a recollection of how that and Sputnik and the reaction made a difference here on campus?
Fauset: Probably limited to the College of Education. It increased the attention upon mathematics and science. We thought it was really a boon for those two areas. And we wanted to be a part of it. We did a considerable amount of study into the approaches in both elementary and high school. And I think that all people including College students were more receptive to the point of view that they need to increase their education, they need to sharpen up their skills. The time has come to be competitive.
Poen: I believe if I’m not mistake that the second doctoral program offered on the campus was in the field of education. I think biology was first then education, or am I mistaken on that? They could have come together.
Fauset: I think they came simultaneously. I think they came together.
Poen: It developed in the early 1970’s didn’t it?
Fauset: Right.
Poen: How about building the graduate program. I’m sure you were very involved in that. And I notice you have Dr. Lyle Mullens. Did he have a role to play in building that program?
Fauset: He certainly did. One of the things we recognized early was to be effective our doctoral program was going to have to be field based. We were going to have to take it to the candidates wherever they may be. We just did not have the resources to bring them in here in any kind of a body to educate them financially. And Lyle Mullens was instrumental in developing a field based program as you might recall, in some other reading I mentioned that he had a very simple approach to this. If one of our faculty wanted to teach a field based course, Lyle said well come into my office, and if you can show me how this course would be better that the one we teach on campus, it’s yours. And we did a lot of that in the San Diego area. We had quite a few excellent doctoral candidates from that area because of the field based possibilities we developed in our doctoral program. I was pretty proud of that doctoral program from the beginning. The plan to reduce the total number of dissertation hours but really catch up with them with a dissertation seminar was fairly new. Allowed us to have a much higher percentage of people who finished the dissertation who started the program initially. mpared even with institutions like Harvard. And that was good. We did a lot of work, had a lot of fun. And I’m really pleased with how that doctoral program developed. I hear it’s even better now.
Poen: I remember when I first got here, that in the late 60’s early 70’s we attracted a tremendous number of California teachers coming back in summer school to Flagstaff. I’m sure the weather had something to do with it. I also believe that our out of state tuition was not very high. I believe it was quite affordable. But then it dropped off. Do you recall that at all, when the California teachers sort of dropped off. Maybe it had something to do with California Policy, I’m not sure.
Fauset: California certification. They at one time required a master’s degree at least for high school teachers. I’m not sure whether that was true for elementary teachers. But when that requirement ceased enrollment ceased. And that...
Poen: Well let’s see, you have an expanding undergraduate program of course. Anything come to mind in that regard. The tremendous explosion of undergraduates. Just amazing.
Fauset: Well, getting back to the admission of students into the teacher education program, we always did have an admission program going, but it was quite informal. Before this expansion that you are referring to, the faculty would get together and we’d go over the names of people who had applied, and somebody would know that student. And we would have a discussion and say yes or no, but in this expansion that led to the program I mentioned earlier. An admission program, a much more formal one. We also developed some programs because of that expansion. One I think in special education. One of them in nearly proudest of is a program in special education. Student takes a major in elementary and a minor in special, or because of certification requirements again, we reverse it. A major in special education and a minor in elementary education. We had any number of students going through that program who became some of the very best teachers in the state of Arizona. They really came through strong. I was very pleased with that outcome.
Poen: 1964, a movement began in earnest to become a university. And I not that you signed a position paper to the board of regents. Oh, that had to do with the university name. There was some question as to what the name would be. Do you remember that debate?
Fauset: Yeah.
Poen: Did you have strong feelings about it one way or the other, what the university would be called?
Fauset: Personally, I did not. We had diversity in opinion about what it should be called. The one that they came up with was quite acceptable to me. There were some that favored I think second was University of Northern Arizona. I don’t recall the third and fourth.
Poen: There has been some speculation that University of Northern Arizona may have someway psychologically competed with the U of A. It would have been too close. But it was a regent’s policy. Ok. Well, what about some of the committees you served on university wide. I know you were a member of the university cabinet. How’d that work?
Fauset: We met every Tuesday, all of the deans of the various Colleges, the vice presidents, and the leader was President Walkup. And he would present an agenda of issues, throw out problems, and get us to react. It was good. It was very helpful. It served to keep it current with problems. It was time consuming at times, but I thought it was well worth it. At the end, you’d always go around and see if there was a problem that was pertinent to a particular College that might be helpful just to put it out on the table there and have people offer suggestions. And for several years, I was a member of that university cabinet. Then I had my own cabinet in the College of Education, we met on a regular basis. We had an associate dean and an assistant dean, and various heads of activities within the College. And we’d get together and talk things over, make some decisions. As dean of the College of Education, I was chair of the teacher education committee which was campus wide, a representative from each College. That was a pretty active committee too. We had to approve all of the teacher education programs that existed were developed on this campus. That kept us hopping at times, especially with the rapid expansion. But it was good.
Poen: What about accreditation? Was there any problem with that when you got here in 1950? I think by that time, wasn’t accreditation pretty much a problem of the past or not?
Fauset: Well, it depends on what you mean by problems. We took accreditation visits very seriously. After I arrived, we were always successful, but we considered it a problem. That was throughout the campus. In fact, a reason we were very successful was J. Lawrence Walkup who saw the importance, and he saw how accrediting was sweeping the nation. In fact, he was president of AAE which developed this NK thing which for teacher education was even more powerful than North Central Accrediting Association. So we spent a lot of time in developing our story for each accreditation visit we had. But we were always successful.
Poen: When they developed south campus, were you involved in that decision at all? To have another learning center as a satellite.
Fauset: Only form the position of having been a member of the university cabinet. I didn’t get highly involved with that.
Poen: How much time do we have left on this tape? Fifteen minutes. Okay. Well let’s talk about that unless you have some other issues. Were there any issues that you especially wanted to achieve maybe going beyond the education field? Any pet ideas that you had that you pushed? Anything like that? Well in terms of building the plant or admission requirements. Did you get involved in the faculty senate when it was first proposed?
Fauset: Briefly. But I don’t recall developing any thought or arguing very strongly in one direction or another. Of course I have always had a few thoughts on obtaining teachers. I don’t know if it’s come to pass or not. I have a feeling that looking into the future, that our school systems may change very rapidly. Especially with the tremendous advances with the computer and technology, we may find these tremendous public schools out of business. We may find that we might go back to the original one room school house. Have a, maybe have a house on each block in these big cities, we may find that we can offer education better if we...We’ve always felt hamstrung by a kind of habit we got into many years ago that the proper ratio is one teacher to thirty students, and that has stayed with us many years. With our increase in technology, we may have to take another look at that.
Poen: That’s interesting going full circle. I went to a one room school in Iowa, and to think we might go back to that because of technology is interesting.
Fauset: You know there was some good things about those. And one of those have to do with the psychology of review. Those schools take a 6th grader and have him work with a 4th grader and in that process be reviewing which is essential to good sound learning. And things like that were good. They are on the plus side.
Poen: Of course I also remember a 6th grader that was twenty-five years old. It seems they stayed in school a real long time.
Fauset: Well, I remember speaking of age, I think the second year I was here I think 1952, we had a student that came in as a junior. She had finished two years here and had married and moved to Alaska, finished a career, buried her husband up there, came back and became a junior at age 72. And finished by the way, then went out on the reservation. She couldn’t have got a job in our public schools because she was too old. She had passed retirement age before she started.
Poen: Any other students that stick out in your memory. I’m sure there are many of them that went on to be exceptionally successful.
Fauset: That’s one of the advantages of this profession. I’d hate to really start naming them, but they are several. Just makes you feel good all over when you see them.
Poen: Was Lattie Coor on campus when you were here? He was. I don’t remember what Lattie Coor’s major was.
Fauset: Lattie was history. Social Studies of some sort.
Poen: I hope to get Lattie or to visit with us.
Fauset: He was the most effective student leader we ever had. He just moved in and became the leader. Even as a College student, you know you expect some impulsive things from College students. Even the brighter ones. But I don’t recall anything from Lattie.
Poen: Do you remember on occasion that Rexer Berndt would gather the faculty at midnight or one o’clock in the morning and say that we have a panty raid in progress or threatened and we want you to go stand under the lamp posts and see if we can bring about some kind of tranquility to the campus. Do you remember any of that?
Fauset: Oh yes. I participated in a few walks. Our campus didn’t suffer as a great numbers of campuses did when there was considerable College unrest. But we in teams, I’m talking about faculty members now, walked through the campus. And I think it really deterred a lot of actions that would have been unwanted both for the faculty and for the students once they thought about it- they hoped they didn’t do it. Yeah I remember. They were kind of frightening days.
Poen: Those 60’s. So much activity on other campuses, but we didn’t have much did we?
Fauset: No we didn’t. We survived that. We came through in good shape.
Poen: Well I’m sure we’re coming close to the end this tape can we start another one?

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Charles Fauset Part 1
Interviewed by Monte Poen
March 22, 1996
Poen: I’m visiting this morning with Dr. Charles Fauset. Dr. Fauset came to Northern Arizona University- actually it was ASC Arizona State College in 1950. And we had about six hundred seventy-seven student’s there- according to my figures- fifty-two faculty at that time. Dr. Fauset became the first dean of the College of Education, and when he retired, after a tremendous amount of growth, accomplishment, challenges, in1981, this institution had increased to 11,601 students. We had six hundred fifty-one faculty. Imagine, we had gone from fifty-two faculty to six hundred fifty-one faculty. I’m delighted to have you with me this morning Dr. Fauset.
Fauset: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Poen: Why don’t we start off talking about your early years. Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
Fauset: In Indiana. In a small town in the North ntral part of Indiana. A little town completely surrounded by farms. Small farms. Very rich soil in that area.
Poen: What was the town’s name?
Fauset: Delphi. Delphi, Indiana.
Poen: Did you come from a small family or a big family?
Fauset: Well my family was pretty small too. I have one sister. Of course my mother and father.
Poen: And you went to school in Delphi?
Fauset: Went through high school in Delphi. Then went on down to Terre Haute, and got my bachelor’s degree. And some years later a master’s degree from the same institution. And after WWII, I took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights and went back to Indiana University at Bloomington to get my doctorate.
Poen: What did you do during the war?
Fauset: I was in reconnaissance, Air Force reconnaissance in the European theatre.
Poen: Got your doctorate at Indiana. I assume it was in education?
Fauset: Educational psychology with a minor in psychology.
Poen: Did you come here immediately when you graduated from Indiana University?
Fauset: Yes. From Bloomington to Flagstaff.
Poen: Had you ever been to Flagstaff before? Ever driven through here?
Fauset: No I hadn’t - you must remember this was 1950 and College faculty were extremely hard to come by. They were very difficult to find. I can recall having one, two, three, four offers by phone. Isn’t like that now I’m sure. And one of them was from Dr. Eastburn .
Poen: What attracted you to ASFlagstaff if you had other offers.
Fauset: Well, to tell you the truth it was climate. Before going overseas, I had spent a considerable amount of time in Colorado Springs, Colorado and loved it. So when we started looking for a place to live and work, I thought it would be fine to find something similar to Colorado Springs. By the way, they had a private college there with an offer. Their salaries were terrible in Colorado in those days. I hope they’re better now. But I got out the map and found that the altitude is similar, a little higher here. And there were some other considerations, but that frankly was a major one.
Poen: So when you arrived and we had about six hundred students. You mentioned earlier that it dropped because of the Korean War. You arrived in 1950. The war got started in June if I’m not mistaken, and we dropped about one hundred students in one year.
Fauset: Down close to five hundred in ‘51-’52.
Poen: When you got here, we had twelve faculty members in the education area. What was it called at that time, was it called a department?
Fauset: Department of Education. That by the way included the lab school teachers. Half of them were in lab school.
Poen: Tell me a little bit about this lab school. This was actually an elementary school on this campus, and it was used as a laboratory to develop learning techniques. Is that right?
Fauset: Yes, that’s right. We had some excellent teachers in that lab school when I arrived. I had nothing to do with getting them, I had something to do with keeping them, but that was later down the line. We had excellent lab school teachers. Most of them taught a College course. Elementary reading, arithmetic, or some methods course...something like this. I think organizationally they were always considered part of the faculty.
Poen: Do you remember some of those early people? Who were they?
Fauset: Zitfini was the kindergarten, Minnie Roseberry in first grade, Gladys Fair in the 3rd grade, Ivernia Tyson in the 4th. We had, we were trying to keep men as teachers in the 5th and 6th grade to give the kids the opportunity to be in contact with both men and women. Jerry Knoles was there in the 6th grade, I can recall Francis Davern in the 5th. Frank Lloyd was in the 6th, and he kind of stayed on and went ahead and got his doctorate, came back and became principal there. Great service for many, many years.
Poen: Were you hired as the chair of the department?
Fauset: No. I was hired as replacement for the one psychologist that ASC had at that time. She took off for a year’s study. And my major task was to be director of testing to run the test program. For some reason or another I found out that all the College students in 1950 were subjected to five different tests, as part of the admission procedure. They took a scholastic aptitude test, a reading test, an interest inventory, personality, the old Minnesota Multiphase, and a fifth test, I don’t recall just what that was at the present time. That was before computers and any kind of mechanical help. You say there were fifty faculty, I thought there were only forty, forty-three?
Poen: It says fifteen, twelve rather.
Fauset: In the entire College.
Poen: I don’t have those figures.
Fauset: I thought there were about forty-three. The reason I thought that is after giving all of these tests to our students, we had to hand grade them. And I had to try to get these forty-three people. By the way they were marvelous, exceedingly helpful. We would come back and get in the registrar’s office, get at our own desks, and come around with keys...
Poen: Your talking about College wide.
Fauset: I’m talking about College wide.
Poen: According to my figures in 1951-’52 there were sixty-four. And then the next year it dropped down to sixty, I guess that reflects the drop.
Fauset: I guess ten or fifteen escaped the grading of those papers.
Poen: So the whole College would grade those papers whether you were a history prof or a chemistry prof.
Fauset: And some did better that others. People like Downum and Bastion, always were there to help grade those. And 100% of the education faculty.
Poen: How about the quality of students when you got here? Did they strike you as being different in anyway?
Fauset: Yes they did. This was my first experience with college level. Well, I had taught a couple classes in English at an extension at the University of Illinois when I was there briefly. But these students were pretty mature. Many of them were returnees from WWII as I was. We lived down in ttage ty, which is now gone. And most of the students also lived down there. As I recall they were more mature than I expected them to be.
Poen: GI’s. On the GI Bill. Anything about the campus that struck you? The landscaping, the informality? Didn’t they have their own dairy, or was that before you came?
Fauset: That was before my four years. I never got into the cow milking business as a part of the university.
Poen: Well, I understand that some of the students worked their way through school doing this.
Fauset: Oh yeah. And I can recall many stories because the students were still here, so I must not have been long before my arrival that they had stopped.
Poen: You were appointed the first dean of the College of Education in 1966. Were you the chair prior to this?
Fauset: Yes.
Poen: When were you elevated to chair? How long had you been here?
Fauset: It was when the school decided to organize into some divisions so then we were departments and the education structure was set into a division. I think it was 1959. I had been here seven years and then got an offer to go back to my alma mater, Indiana State College. And I couldn’t resist whatever it is that hauls you back like that. In one year, in that year I had worked seven years then with President Walkup who was dean when I left. And he came by and offered me the job as head of the division when it was being formed, I think it was 1959. And we operated as a division until 1966, when we became a university and fortunately I was selected as the dean. Really, I was the first dean, and I was happier and prouder of the fact that I was longest dean in...
Poen: How long were you there?
Fauset: I was there seven, twelve, fourteen years. I haven’t counted them, but I think it was around fourteen.
Poen: Well it was under your leadership that there was tremendous growth leadership, bricks and mortar. Wasn’t Eastburn opened up before or after you became dean?
Fauset: Before. When we became a division. When I came back we weren’t in Eastburn- it was nearly completed. And it was about one semester, it would either be by 1959 or 1960 that we moved into the Eastburn Education nter.
Poen: Where were you before that? What building? Were you in Old Main?
Fauset: Old Main. Let’s see. Summers we weren’t all together. The lab school was that journalism building when I left, I don’t know what it is now. First building when you come onto campus. And then the old administration building...
Poen: The Blome Building.
Fauset: Yeah that was the lab school. The next one the administration building also housed the library, and the registrar’s office, and the business office. And my office was in that building. Tom Bellwood’s office was in there too. We were a kind of mixture. One of the nice things about that kind of small faculty is that we were one. We didn’t separate ourselves by interest pattern or background training. We were just one collegiate faculty. Another thing about that Eastburn Education nter. I can recall for a couple of years, we wondered what we were going to do with all that space. We had really been crowded before that.
Poen: Was the lab school built at the same time? Was it Eastburn and then the wing behind it. And then IHD at the very end- The Institute for Human Development was that added on later?
Fauset: That was part of the original plan. Not much later, two or three years after we moved in, Ron Peterson got a good sizable grant to study an Indian population that needed some rehabilitation services. And as we worked through that, we came out with this rehabilitation center, which I think is a remarkable addition there to the College of Education. Allowed us to really diversify as we hired our educational psychology staff. It really boomed, and blossomed into twenty professors. And gave us the opportunity to specialize. Even though we were still relatively small institution, small in terms of the production of teachers we were able to hire specialists in the field of Psychology, which was my original area of specialty anyway. We hired a clinical psychologist, an industrial psychologist, counseling psych., experimental, physiological, we could weave them all into the basic core of educational psychology. It worked fine. They are now as you know not in the College of Education. But in those days as we were developing it was good for the university and it was good for the psychologists.
Poen: So you added a lot of faculty in the 1960’s. You had ninety faculty in education by 1975. That’s a jump from twelve faculty to ninety faculty. I notice you put a lot of emphasis upon student teacher counseling. And from Dr. Walkup’s book, this was explained as being quite new. Maybe not new, but that this institution stood out in contrast to other institutions in that there was so much emphasis put upon counseling, and helping them maybe beyond the academic curriculum. uld you make a comment about that? Whose idea was that? Or was that a pattern that developed over a period of time?
Fauset: I think it was the idea of the total College. We used to have quite a few meetings. I felt that my role was to encourage. I wasn’t the kind of boss who passed around orders. I felt I thought I could communicate individually or with the whole group in terms of encouraging them to keep thinking - what do the teachers of today need to know. What behavior patterns do they need that we might be giving them? And what kind of background experiences should we select these people from? As we kept talking, it grew into a kind of formalized admission program. I think in terms of timing it was one of the first. We developed a thorough admission program, and along with that, we devised a scheme of having our faculty advise each education major. And we even had the education major report to the admission center and the faculty advisor. In those days the faculty advisor may have ten maybe fifteen. We felt in addition to courses, you ought to get aquatinted with the students and be a counselor. Things were rapidly changing in the total education scene in those days, and we wanted those people to have the opportunity to see how they were doing, and how they could improve their chances of being an effective teacher.
Poen: You mentioned the Korean War and the impact it had. Sputnik had quite an impact didn’t it in 1957. I know from talking with others that it gave the institution quite a kick because there was an emphasis now upon spending more money, not only on the state, but on the national level. The federal government got into the act with the National Defense Education Program which I am a beneficiary of. Providing fellowships for graduate students and so on. Do you have a recollection of how that and Sputnik and the reaction made a difference here on campus?
Fauset: Probably limited to the College of Education. It increased the attention upon mathematics and science. We thought it was really a boon for those two areas. And we wanted to be a part of it. We did a considerable amount of study into the approaches in both elementary and high school. And I think that all people including College students were more receptive to the point of view that they need to increase their education, they need to sharpen up their skills. The time has come to be competitive.
Poen: I believe if I’m not mistake that the second doctoral program offered on the campus was in the field of education. I think biology was first then education, or am I mistaken on that? They could have come together.
Fauset: I think they came simultaneously. I think they came together.
Poen: It developed in the early 1970’s didn’t it?
Fauset: Right.
Poen: How about building the graduate program. I’m sure you were very involved in that. And I notice you have Dr. Lyle Mullens. Did he have a role to play in building that program?
Fauset: He certainly did. One of the things we recognized early was to be effective our doctoral program was going to have to be field based. We were going to have to take it to the candidates wherever they may be. We just did not have the resources to bring them in here in any kind of a body to educate them financially. And Lyle Mullens was instrumental in developing a field based program as you might recall, in some other reading I mentioned that he had a very simple approach to this. If one of our faculty wanted to teach a field based course, Lyle said well come into my office, and if you can show me how this course would be better that the one we teach on campus, it’s yours. And we did a lot of that in the San Diego area. We had quite a few excellent doctoral candidates from that area because of the field based possibilities we developed in our doctoral program. I was pretty proud of that doctoral program from the beginning. The plan to reduce the total number of dissertation hours but really catch up with them with a dissertation seminar was fairly new. Allowed us to have a much higher percentage of people who finished the dissertation who started the program initially. mpared even with institutions like Harvard. And that was good. We did a lot of work, had a lot of fun. And I’m really pleased with how that doctoral program developed. I hear it’s even better now.
Poen: I remember when I first got here, that in the late 60’s early 70’s we attracted a tremendous number of California teachers coming back in summer school to Flagstaff. I’m sure the weather had something to do with it. I also believe that our out of state tuition was not very high. I believe it was quite affordable. But then it dropped off. Do you recall that at all, when the California teachers sort of dropped off. Maybe it had something to do with California Policy, I’m not sure.
Fauset: California certification. They at one time required a master’s degree at least for high school teachers. I’m not sure whether that was true for elementary teachers. But when that requirement ceased enrollment ceased. And that...
Poen: Well let’s see, you have an expanding undergraduate program of course. Anything come to mind in that regard. The tremendous explosion of undergraduates. Just amazing.
Fauset: Well, getting back to the admission of students into the teacher education program, we always did have an admission program going, but it was quite informal. Before this expansion that you are referring to, the faculty would get together and we’d go over the names of people who had applied, and somebody would know that student. And we would have a discussion and say yes or no, but in this expansion that led to the program I mentioned earlier. An admission program, a much more formal one. We also developed some programs because of that expansion. One I think in special education. One of them in nearly proudest of is a program in special education. Student takes a major in elementary and a minor in special, or because of certification requirements again, we reverse it. A major in special education and a minor in elementary education. We had any number of students going through that program who became some of the very best teachers in the state of Arizona. They really came through strong. I was very pleased with that outcome.
Poen: 1964, a movement began in earnest to become a university. And I not that you signed a position paper to the board of regents. Oh, that had to do with the university name. There was some question as to what the name would be. Do you remember that debate?
Fauset: Yeah.
Poen: Did you have strong feelings about it one way or the other, what the university would be called?
Fauset: Personally, I did not. We had diversity in opinion about what it should be called. The one that they came up with was quite acceptable to me. There were some that favored I think second was University of Northern Arizona. I don’t recall the third and fourth.
Poen: There has been some speculation that University of Northern Arizona may have someway psychologically competed with the U of A. It would have been too close. But it was a regent’s policy. Ok. Well, what about some of the committees you served on university wide. I know you were a member of the university cabinet. How’d that work?
Fauset: We met every Tuesday, all of the deans of the various Colleges, the vice presidents, and the leader was President Walkup. And he would present an agenda of issues, throw out problems, and get us to react. It was good. It was very helpful. It served to keep it current with problems. It was time consuming at times, but I thought it was well worth it. At the end, you’d always go around and see if there was a problem that was pertinent to a particular College that might be helpful just to put it out on the table there and have people offer suggestions. And for several years, I was a member of that university cabinet. Then I had my own cabinet in the College of Education, we met on a regular basis. We had an associate dean and an assistant dean, and various heads of activities within the College. And we’d get together and talk things over, make some decisions. As dean of the College of Education, I was chair of the teacher education committee which was campus wide, a representative from each College. That was a pretty active committee too. We had to approve all of the teacher education programs that existed were developed on this campus. That kept us hopping at times, especially with the rapid expansion. But it was good.
Poen: What about accreditation? Was there any problem with that when you got here in 1950? I think by that time, wasn’t accreditation pretty much a problem of the past or not?
Fauset: Well, it depends on what you mean by problems. We took accreditation visits very seriously. After I arrived, we were always successful, but we considered it a problem. That was throughout the campus. In fact, a reason we were very successful was J. Lawrence Walkup who saw the importance, and he saw how accrediting was sweeping the nation. In fact, he was president of AAE which developed this NK thing which for teacher education was even more powerful than North Central Accrediting Association. So we spent a lot of time in developing our story for each accreditation visit we had. But we were always successful.
Poen: When they developed south campus, were you involved in that decision at all? To have another learning center as a satellite.
Fauset: Only form the position of having been a member of the university cabinet. I didn’t get highly involved with that.
Poen: How much time do we have left on this tape? Fifteen minutes. Okay. Well let’s talk about that unless you have some other issues. Were there any issues that you especially wanted to achieve maybe going beyond the education field? Any pet ideas that you had that you pushed? Anything like that? Well in terms of building the plant or admission requirements. Did you get involved in the faculty senate when it was first proposed?
Fauset: Briefly. But I don’t recall developing any thought or arguing very strongly in one direction or another. Of course I have always had a few thoughts on obtaining teachers. I don’t know if it’s come to pass or not. I have a feeling that looking into the future, that our school systems may change very rapidly. Especially with the tremendous advances with the computer and technology, we may find these tremendous public schools out of business. We may find that we might go back to the original one room school house. Have a, maybe have a house on each block in these big cities, we may find that we can offer education better if we...We’ve always felt hamstrung by a kind of habit we got into many years ago that the proper ratio is one teacher to thirty students, and that has stayed with us many years. With our increase in technology, we may have to take another look at that.
Poen: That’s interesting going full circle. I went to a one room school in Iowa, and to think we might go back to that because of technology is interesting.
Fauset: You know there was some good things about those. And one of those have to do with the psychology of review. Those schools take a 6th grader and have him work with a 4th grader and in that process be reviewing which is essential to good sound learning. And things like that were good. They are on the plus side.
Poen: Of course I also remember a 6th grader that was twenty-five years old. It seems they stayed in school a real long time.
Fauset: Well, I remember speaking of age, I think the second year I was here I think 1952, we had a student that came in as a junior. She had finished two years here and had married and moved to Alaska, finished a career, buried her husband up there, came back and became a junior at age 72. And finished by the way, then went out on the reservation. She couldn’t have got a job in our public schools because she was too old. She had passed retirement age before she started.
Poen: Any other students that stick out in your memory. I’m sure there are many of them that went on to be exceptionally successful.
Fauset: That’s one of the advantages of this profession. I’d hate to really start naming them, but they are several. Just makes you feel good all over when you see them.
Poen: Was Lattie Coor on campus when you were here? He was. I don’t remember what Lattie Coor’s major was.
Fauset: Lattie was history. Social Studies of some sort.
Poen: I hope to get Lattie or to visit with us.
Fauset: He was the most effective student leader we ever had. He just moved in and became the leader. Even as a College student, you know you expect some impulsive things from College students. Even the brighter ones. But I don’t recall anything from Lattie.
Poen: Do you remember on occasion that Rexer Berndt would gather the faculty at midnight or one o’clock in the morning and say that we have a panty raid in progress or threatened and we want you to go stand under the lamp posts and see if we can bring about some kind of tranquility to the campus. Do you remember any of that?
Fauset: Oh yes. I participated in a few walks. Our campus didn’t suffer as a great numbers of campuses did when there was considerable College unrest. But we in teams, I’m talking about faculty members now, walked through the campus. And I think it really deterred a lot of actions that would have been unwanted both for the faculty and for the students once they thought about it- they hoped they didn’t do it. Yeah I remember. They were kind of frightening days.
Poen: Those 60’s. So much activity on other campuses, but we didn’t have much did we?
Fauset: No we didn’t. We survived that. We came through in good shape.
Poen: Well I’m sure we’re coming close to the end this tape can we start another one?